Digitech Hardwire HT-2 Tuner Review

After struggling with an inadequate tuner where I always had to unplug my guitar lead from the amp and plug into the tuner separately, I decided to purchase a tuner pedal that could be connected to directly from my guitar and into an amplifier or DI box, enabling me to tune my guitar between songs with ease.

I headed to a local guitar shop expecting to purchase the Boss TU-2 but figured I’d ask what alternatives they had in stock. The shop attendant directed me to the Digitech HT-2 which was on offer at that time and after playing around with it for 10 minutes I instantly loved it and bought it.

Features:

True Bypass circuitry preserves your tone when bypassed. Two modes of tuning are available; Normal and Strobe. The package also includes a glow in the dark locatable sticker that mounts on top of the tuner – handy for when you’re on a dark stage. In addition, a perfectly cut Velcro base is available to apply to the underside of the pedal if you prefer to mount your pedal on a Velcro covered pedal board.

Ease of use:

Tuners are one of the most dull but essential pieces of kit. You will find when tuning your guitar the large bright display is easy to see and the tuning LED indicators cut through the the darkest of venues.

On both normal and strobe modes the display is smooth and accurate. Changing the battery is a piece of cake, all you need is the end of a jack lead to release the cover.

Sound quality:

The pedal doesn’t seem to affect your tone and there is not much more you can say then that.

Reliability:

I have had no issues with my pedal and the battery life is good.

Overall rating:

After showing it to friends who use the Boss TU-2 they all agree it’s much nicer to use and seems much better built. When you get the pedal out of the box for the first time one of the things you will notice is that it feels like a really solid piece of kit.

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5 Comments

Sam

June 01, 2010
10:57:58 am

Thanks for the contribution Ben. I enjoyed reading this as I’m using this tuner too. I ditched an old Fender tuner in preferences to this model, mainly for the True Bypass feature. And you’re correct this pedal does feel very solid, as do the other pedals in the Hardwire range. I have to admit, I don’t use the strobe mode though 😉

I’ve got a Korg DT-10. It looks cool and works well although, recently it’s stopped working with the power supply so have had to resort to batteries. That can get expensive. Have you seen the Gibson Robot guitar? It literally tunes itself! Mental..